Michelle Obama steps into health care spotlight

The White House plans to have more engagement from Michelle Obama in 2014. | AP Photo

While both of the Obamas spent about the same amount of time speaking, one of the mothers, Felicia Willems, of Raleigh, N.C., said she found the first lady’s comments particularly compelling.

“There is something really powerful about the mom-in-chief talking about the importance of making sure that moms across the country talk to their kids about the importance of enrolling, and encourage their friends and their community to talk about insurance and the important role that it plays in everybody’s life,” said Willems, whose son was born with a heart tumor, and who advocates for health care through MomsRising, a left-leaning grassroots group.

Text Size

-

+

reset

The first lady also sat for interviews Wednesday with radio hosts Yolanda Adams, Al Sharpton and Joe Madison, whose audiences are predominantly African American. “For me as a mother … I just can’t put into words how important it is for every American, for every mother, for every person in this country to have health care, because you just never know what kind of curve balls life [is] going to throw you,” she told Sharpton.

She also wrote an op-ed, published midday, for Babble, a Disney-owned website for mothers and families. There, she recounted her family’s struggles though daughter Sasha’s battle with meningitis. The Obamas were lucky, the first lady wrote, because they had health insurance that covered the cost of Sasha’s care, but far too many families have no such support or run into obstacles like lifetime insurance caps. Because of the ACA, she said, “we now have the security of knowing that no matter what life throws their way, we’ll be able to get our kids the care they need.”

“As a mother,” she added, “I can’t think of a better gift this holiday season.”

While Obama’s activities Wednesday marked a greater level of engagement in promoting ACA, she’s rarely been shy about celebrating the law, trumpeting its passage in her 2012 stump speeches and writing a handful of op-eds on the subject ahead of the HealthCare.gov launch.

But Obama’s higher profile on health care does align with a broader push by the White House and outside groups to reach out to women. Groups including Enroll America, Planned Parenthood and Ultraviolet are engaging women, as are senior administration officials including Jarrett, domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. They’ve sat for interviews with women’s magazines including Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Marie Claire, and written targeted op-eds.

But the strongest messenger for the administration remains the first lady, whose approval ratings hover more than 20 points higher than her husband’s, which have recently been in the low-40s.

Nicole Duritz, vice president of health and family for AARP’s education and outreach team who was also in Wednesday’s meeting, said she took away a sense that health care is “a very personal issue” for the Obamas. She was particularly struck by a reporter’s shouted question for the first lady about why she’d decided to join the president’s efforts to promote the law.